Feeding the chooks: Love and loathing at Governor Paul de Jersey’s send-off
A lot of love, and a little acrimony, was in the air on Monday night at the farewell dinner for Queensland Governor Paul de Jersey.
The former chief justice, who has been the Queen’s rep since 2014, was showered with praise at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre for his decades of public service as the skies opened-up outside.
Call it a case of royal assent; the event was the first time the Premier and her beau, Brisbane obesity surgeon Reza Adib, posed as a couple in an official photograph with the Gov, his wife, Kaye, outgoing chief justice Catherine Holmes, and Speaker Curtis Pitt among others.
Palaszczuk went public about Adib in a newspaper article in early September that came, interestingly, as she faced nationwide criticism over her government allowing NRL partners into the state while locking almost everyone else out.
But while the pair seemed to enjoy the night, Chooks has been told that across the room a few feathers were ruffled over seating allocations on one table.
Can’t help but wonder about the thinking of whoever put opposition leader David Crisafulli and Jarrod Bleijie on the same table as their former boss Campbell Newman and his wife, Lisa.
Only a few months ago, Newman — who is running as a Liberal Democrat senate candidate at the next federal election — gave his one-time protege a public basting, saying the LNP was directionless under Crisafulli’s leadership.
One LNP insider said the night was “awkies!”.
D’Ath and her imaginary friends
The Palaszczuk government’s denial that border closures are having no impact on the north Queensland tourism industry has reached new levels of delusion.
During a visit last week to Cairns, a tourist town on its knees after more than 18 months of state and international border restrictions, Health Minister Yvette D’Ath seemed to be hallucinating.
The #Cairns Esplanade is very popular for breakfast this morning. pic.twitter.com/I9ytHF1CiV
— Yvette D'Ath MP (@YvetteDAth) October 21, 2021
Posting a photo of an empty cafe (aside from a small bird) to Twitter, D’Ath declared: “The Cairns esplanade is very popular for breakfast this morning.”
Among those who attempted to bring the minister back to reality was Queensland Liberal National Party senator James McGrath, who is known for his own flights of fancy on social media. He pointed out the obvious: “THERE IS NO-ONE HAVING BREAKFAST. I REPEAT, NO-ONE. It is empty.”
Pollies at play
Queensland MPs took an early mark and headed to the Broncos training field on Monday afternoon for the annual pollies’ “City versus Country” touch footy game.
Obviously, electorate and ministerial work was done for the day.
Rugby League legend Scott Prince was the ring-in for Country, scoring four tries, while City had Alfie Langer on the park and Steve Walters as coach.
LNP frontbencher Deb Frecklington — who led the LNP to an election drubbing last year — can finally claim a win — of sorts — as Country captain, leading her side to a 5-2 defeat of City, captained by former NRL ref and former LNP deputy leader Tim Mander.
Robbie Katter, who once aspired to play for the Cowboys, was Man of the Match and awarded a Broncos jersey.
We look forward to seeing him wearing it down the street of his Cowboys-mad hometown of Mount Isa.
Labor’s Mark “Mangocube” Bailey threw a few hospital passes during the email scandal a few years back and maintained form during a warm up with an offload to a one-time ETU mate, backbencher Lance McCallum, who dislocated his finger.
Scanlon tied up by green tape
Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon is on the hunt for new forests to protect after her cunning plan to supposedly lock timber cutters out of an area that was not previously logged was felled by the conservation lobby.
Ever the opportunist, Scanlon had intended to count the 6000ha Glen Rock State Forest towards the government’s commitment to protect 20,000ha of state forestry from logging.
But Glen Rock, southwest of Brisbane, a former cattle station purchased by the government for conservation and recreation in 1996, was only gazetted as state forest in 2011 and was never actually commercially harvested in that time.
Conservationists dubbed Scanlon’s move to include it in the protection tally as “disingenuous”, saying it would detract from other areas that would otherwise have been protected.
Scanlon, who was enraged by the greenie humiliation, didn’t mention the furore in a press release earlier this month in which she announced Glen Rock would become part of Main Range National Park. However, sources told the Chooks the minister assured the conservationists she wouldn’t include it towards the 20,000ha target.
Contempt finding
A Liberal National Party MP has been found guilty of disclosing a secret parliamentary committee vote.
Queensland’s powerful ethics committee found Gold Coast-based MP Michael Hart guilty of contempt after he revealed the result of a vote and disclosed details of a confidential Indigenous land use agreement.
Mr Hart has avoided fines but was ordered to apologise to the parliament.
Greens MP Michael Berkman was found guilty of contempt last year after wearing an anti-Adani shirt in the building.
In 2019, Annastacia Palaszczuk became the first Premier to be found guilty of the offence after she threatened to strip the Katter’s Australian Party MPs of their staff when they refused to denounce Fraser Anning for using the Nazi-associated phrase “final solution”.
Legislative agenda
The Palaszczuk government has shrugged off criticism of its unambitious legislative reform.
Analysis by The Courier Mail on Tuesday revealed the government has introduced the lowest number of new laws for more than 20 years.
The number of bills introduced by the Palaszczuk government has declined each year — from 56 when it was first elected in 2015 to 37 last year.
Two pieces of legislation were yanked within hours of being introduced last year after being scrutinised by the media. One was a plan to parole prisoners early during the pandemic and a push to gag journalists reporting on corruption allegations during election periods.
This year has produced only 20 new pieces of legislation.
Jarrod Bleijie, manager of opposition business, said the government had “run out of ideas”.
However, Leader of the House Yvette D’Ath said “it is substance, not quantity, that matters” and pointed to donation laws passed and decriminalisation of abortion in 2018, and voluntary assisted dying legislation passed last month.
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